Back On The Project

It's been a busy few months, but I am now back to work on the Zizzle project!

I've started to build the new cabinet, and here are the sides. I'm trying to use minimal screws (because I don't want to have to patch holes on the outside), so I'm building with glue and blocking the pieces to fit together very nicely.



The prototype playfield (or whitewood) that I'm building is on pine - it's cheap, easy to work with, and because it's a stacked piece, nice and flat. I know that it will also get messed up easily just by the weight of the ball rolling on it, but it'll be all I really need for this stage. I'm really just trying to lay it out in a way that will flow, then the next whitewood will be on sterner stuff.

Here I've cut out the ball trough, ramp slots, and the holes for the flippers and ramp supports. I'm using the original playfield from POTC to assist in the layout, especially in the spacing and placement of the flippers and slingshots.



This is what the playfield looks like today, with the ramps where I want them.



Because we are going to have nice weather today and tomorrow, I'm planning on getting the cabinet finished this weekend, so that I can put the playfield in and try to make some shots.

I want to get the ramps and plastics in a good place before I decide where to put the bumper mechanism and any other targets or posts.

I'll post cabinet pics soon, and from there I'll need to do some screwing down of parts to get the thing flipping.

See you soon!

Larry

Quick Update

I can't believe it's been a month and a half since my last post - which means it's been that long since I've done any real work on the Zizzle. I guess that's about right, but I'm going to have to do something about that - I want to be able to play!

Some little stuff has happened in the intervening weeks, so I'll run that down to bring things up to speed, and I can get back to regular postings.

I ordered seven standard rollover switches, which I'll use to replace the button-style Zizzle rollovers for the inlanes, outlanes, skillshots, and the shooter lane.

I also found some legends class Starscream figures from the Transformers: Cybertron line, as well as a G1 painted version of Starscream from the Classic line. I'll repaint the legends class figures in jet mode, which resembles the original Cybertronian forms from the original cartoon, into Starscreams' seeker brothers: Skywarp, Thundercracker, Thrust, Dirge, and Ramjet. The Classic's Starscream will stay the way it is, though I'm not sure if I'll transform him into robot mode yet - it all depends on how much height I'll have.

I think the only things I have left to procure are some wood for the playfield / whitewoods, a few standard targets, and the particleboard to build the new cabinet. I guess I also need to get some paint - I know what I need for the figures, but I think I need to think about what the side art will be, and what the playfield artwork will be. I'm not sure if I want to go with the printed vinyl route or stenciled artwork for either of those things.

I guess I have a lot to do - I just need to keep working at it.

Until the next time!

Larry

Hello, again!

Last night I finally had an hour to do some more work on the pinball game.

The first order of business was to objectively test the strength of the solenoids with the original cores, and with the newer, seemingly stronger cores that I had found at the surplus store.

I put together a simple ramp with holes drilled into it to fit the flipper assembly, a post, and the flipper stop. I had to slightly trim one of the flipper linkages to fit the new core (the notch is a tiny bit narrower and shallower then the original), then tested them one after the other.

I first tried flipping a pinball, but I wasn't able to get reproducable measurements. The ramp was at a significant angle, and the flippers weren't up to the task of lifting it reliably. On top of that, as you could guess, the position of the ball on the flipper made a huge difference in height. I needed something I could repeatedly test, place in a consistent starting position, and measure.

I decided to use one of the lenses, and it worked beautifully. I could place it on the same spot on the flipper, and measure how high it went each time. My measurements are showing me that the new core is about 50% stronger than the old, within the original solenoids. This is definitely the way I'm going to go forward, and I'll replace all of the cores (flippers, slingshots, and bumpers) with these new cores. I should get some good movement out of the ball now!



I also wanted to show the scale of the iCoaster pieces, so I placed a ramp and the "elevator" on the POTC graywood to show what is possible...

I have a lot of layout work to do, which I can hopefully get to this weekend. I'll update again, soon!

Larry

Now With Flavor!

Howdy!

For today's update, I have a couple of pictures of the Magnext iCoaster set, as well as a comparison of the original Zizzle flipper rubbers to the new standard rubbers that I bought last week.

This is the elevator that came with the iCoaster. It is basically a motor that turns a conveyor belt, that has a couple of magnets attached, inside this housing.

I tested last night, and it is strong enough to lift the Zizzle pinball straight up - though I don't expect to be doing quite that...

The elevator is of an appropriate size to fit on the playfield, and may even be able to have its shape altered once out of the housing to do some really funky stuff with.




This is a picture of the set, sans the elevator.

You can see the two optos sitting on top, and toward the bottom is the magnetic rail that I mentioned previously. Unfortunately, none of the pieces are glow-in-the-dark...



I previously mentioned that I bought new flipper rubbers, since the bats in the machine are full sized. When I received them, I thought that I had bought the wrong part, because they looked way too small for the flipper.

After some major pulling last night, I managed to stretch them onto the bats, and they look fantastic. The old rubbers are on the left, and the new is on the right - it's a huge difference.



I can't wait to see how will the flippers move the ball now!


I have started altering the flipper linkages to fit the new solenoid core, and I will be performing a full-featured test tonight, hopefully, to measure objectively which core is stronger. Assuming that these tests are successful, I'll have to pick up the other three cores this week so I can replace not only the flippers, but the slingshots and pop bumpers as well.


That's all for now...


Larry

Quick Update

I haven't had a hack of a lot of time to work on the new machine in the last week (or to take pictures), but I have had a chance to do some designing, and a little playing with the Magnext set to get a feel for what I can use it for.

I inventoried (kinda) the iCoaster set, and here are the bits that I can use:
- About 12 ramp pieces - banked curves, straights, and hills.
- A special trampoline ramp - think of a small down ramp with a flat circle halfway down that has rubber stretched across it. I'm not sure how I'll use it, but it has a ton of possibilities...
- A loop ramp. I don't know if I'll have height to make this work - we'll see.
- Two opto switches (they sense when something breaks the beam between the two sides, like a garage door safety switch) - That just saved me $15 - and they will be fun to find uses for.
- A motorized ball lifting tower. I haven't tested it yet to see if it can move a Zizzle pinball, but I'm pretty sure it can, since it is designed to move balls vertically, and I'll be using it to move the ball horizontally up the playfield (if I do use it).

The bad news about the set is that the balls that it comes with are about 1/2 the size of the Zizzle pinball. This affects the magnetic rail and the opto switches that come with the set, as the gaps are too small for the pinball to go through.

The good news is that the ramps all hold the pinball without problem, the magnetic rail is easily strong enough to hold the Zizzle pinball (I can pretty easily alter the ends so that the pinball can ride it), and the opto switch housings can be taken apart and I can then use them wherever I want.

I received the flipper guides in the mail this week, and as expected, they are a little large for the Zizzle playfield. The good news is that they will be easy to trim down, and it looks like they will fit without having to widen the playfield - so the geometry shouldn't be wildly affected.

I'll be out of town for Easter this weekend, but next week I should be able to get back to the project.

On a slightly side note - I'll probably have to use MDF for the whitewoods, as I can't get handy sized (2' x 4') 1/2 particle board nearby. When the time comes, I'll buy a big sheet and use it for the playfield and cabinet rebuilds...

Happy Easter!

Larry

It's been a week since my last post, but that's just because I've been busy with other things..

The good news is that this weekend I did some clearance shopping, and found some tasty parts!

First, I found two different sized soap bubble wands for a buck or two each. When i get the soap out, I'll have two different sized clear cylinders. I plan on using the larger one for the ball launch tube, and I'm not sure what the other might be used for (assuming the ball will fit in the smaller one)...

The big find, was this:



I basically have a Lego type ramp set, including sensors, that I can do all sorts of things with! There is even a magnetized rail that can hold a steel ball (I don't yet know if it will carry the Zizzle pinball - expect the results of that test in the next post).

This guy normally goes for almost $100 - I got mine for $25. The one I have (not the one in this picture) has a white ramps with a black controller block. The box is a little beat up, but everything is in there.

I can't wait to get this open and inventory all of the items I have to work with. I'm pretty sure that this will solve the problems I was facing with creating new ramps to move the ball around. I also like that it's very much in the hacking spirit of taking one thing, getting it cheap, and using it for something else.

I have ordered a pair of "universal" flipper return lane guides to replace the rods that served that purpose on the Zizzle playfield. I don't know if I will have to adjust the width of the playfield for the ball to smoothly roll down the in and outlanes, but once I test it, I'll know if I need to make it an inch wider to fit - it'll be worth it for that upgrade.

I have also ordered a set on new, standard, flipper rubbers, and a set of 30 standard white plastic posts to replace some of the Zizzle posts, and to add posts in front of the flipper guides, etc...

That's all for now,

Larry

A Little More Love

Well, I was able to do a little more work last night.

I've added the right hand ramp, as well as placed the pop bumpers roughly where I want them.

The right ramp originally had two metal rods that would carry the ball to the left-hand outlane, and was originally placed a couple of inches to the left of it's new location. While I don't plan on re-using the rods that came with the machine (they are not as strong or stiff as I would like), I do really like having wireforms - one of my favorites right now is on Roller Coaster Tycoon, where the ball comes all the way down the side, across the area below the flippers, and back up to the opposite inlane - I'd like to do something like that as well, so I'm going to need to figure out a good way to make my own wireforms.

The left hand ramp may also get some wireform love, but I'm not yet sure where I'd have it go. I think those sorts of problems will be best addressed at the whitewood stage, where I can see how the table plays and find a sweet spot to drop the ball off.

The bumpers are going to be a pain to get right, and I'm sure that they are an item that professional pin designers have to tweak a lot as well. I'm limited in how I place them, as they are a single assembly, not individual pop-bumpers. I like my general placement, but the rotation will be the tricky part. I want to be able to shoot the ball into them, and I want the ball to kick around a few times before dropping back out, especially after coming out of the middle exit on the left ramp. Physics are the key here, so I'll just have to try it out and tweak it. The hard part is that I have to drill three big holes to put them in, so I either need to make a whitewood for each iteration (and hopefully only have one or two), or come up with some way to rotate a whole piece containing the bumpers for the first whitewood, and finalize it in the second...

I will be leaving the flipper, slingshot, inlane, and probably outlane placement as originally designed. All of these items are in standard positions, and the slings are a single mechanism, so I can't spread them out or anything. The outlanes might change - I'm not sure it I want to try and do anything interesting with them yet, but it is possible.

I also picked up some steel balls, plastic balls, and a bag o' springs at Ax-man the other day. I intend to use the springs to strengthen the response on everything from the plunger to the pop-bumpers. The plastic balls (two red, two black) will be drilled and finished to be the new plunger handle. I bought two of each because I wasn't sure what color I'd prefer, and in case I messed one up, I'd have a backup - they were only a quarter. The steel balls are almost exactly the size of the original Zizzle ball (which is smaller than a regular pinball) and I bought them for two reasons - possible multiball play, and captured ball targets. I'm pretty sure I'll do at least one captured ball target, if not two. Multiball isn't actually supported in the game PCB, but there's no reason you can't just plunge all three game balls at once for fun and see what you can do. We'll see how they work, but I have high hopes.

There is one more thing I need to replace for the new design for the new unit - the rubber. I'm not sure if the problem is entirely due to poor material (in an understandable cost saving measure), or that combined with age (this is a G1 unit, and could have been manufactured 3 years ago - which really isn't that long) - but the rubber that is supplied is very weak, and is adequate to dampen impacts, but there's no bounce to it. I'm going to be picking up a rubber set for a machine with similar device counts, and use those instead on all items.

I will be replacing the Zizzle posts with standard metal posts with rubber rings on them, and I will also be replacing the original targets with new ones.

That's about all for now - more to come soon!

By the way, this posts' title comes from the 1978 hit by Olivia Newton John, which is stuck in my head after hearing it on the way to work this morning, and the obvious similarity to the first line of this post.

Larry